6 feared dead as four-alarm fire guts Maryland home

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Six people remain unaccounted for after a fierce fire gutted a 16,000-square-foot mansion just outside Maryland’s capital early Monday, a fire official said. Based on information from relatives, six people linked to the 16,000-square-foot home outside Annapolis are unaccounted for, Anne Arundel County Fire Capt.A massive Annapolis, Md., mansion burned to the ground early Monday, sending authorities sifting through the still-smoking wreckage of the $14 million residence in a desperate search for the home’s owners. Russ Davies told the Associated Press. “If you look at the damage, you know, it would not be a stretch to think that if there were occupants that they did not survive the fire,” he added. The waterfront property is the principal residence of owners Donald and Sandra Pyle, according to information from the state Department of Assessments and Taxation.

Donald Pyle is chief operating officer at ScienceLogic, a Reston-based cybersecurity company that monitors networks for private and government clients, including the Department of Defense. Russ Davies, a fire department spokesman, told the Gazette. “But we are operating under the premise that there (were) people inside.” While tax records indicate the home is worth $6.2 million, a law firm associated with the company insuring the home pegged its value at $13.9 million, according to the Gazette. ScienceLogic last year announced a partnership with McLean-based L-3 Data Tactics to bring “big data” monitoring to the U.S. intelligence community and government. Some 85 firefighters battled the blaze after it broke out on the second floor of the two story home, which was built in 2005 and boasts seven bedrooms and 7.5 bathrooms.

So they were pushed back out of the house,”; he said. “There’s no water supply back here, so anything we’re using to fight the fire, we’ve had to bring to the scene,” Davies said, adding that they used tankers and a fire boat. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’s National Response Task Force, which includes county fire department members, was invited to help identify potential victims because of the size of the blaze. “Nothing leads us to believe this is an arson or incendiary-related fire,” Davies said. According to a 2008 story in The Baltimore Sun, the Pyles’ house, which was the site of a charity event, was described as looking like a castle, with mini-turrets, stonework and lion statues.